Google has announced a timeline for ending support for the second version of the Chrome manifest in favor of the third version, which has been criticized for disrupting the functionality of many ad-blocking extensions and security measures. This includes the popular ad blocker uBlock Origin, which cannot be transitioned to the third version of the manifest due to the cessation of support […]
The beta release of Ubuntu 21.10 "Impish Indri" has been presented. Following the formation of this release, a complete freeze of the package base was made, and developers have moved on to final testing and bug fixing. The release is scheduled for October 14th. Ready test images have been created for Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, and UbuntuKylin (the edition for China). Key changes include the transition […]
The release of the desktop-oriented operating system MidnightBSD 2.1 has occurred, based on FreeBSD with components ported from DragonFly BSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. The base desktop environment is built on GNUstep, but users have the option to install WindowMaker, GNOME, Xfce, or Lumina. A 743 MB installation image (x86, amd64) has been prepared for download. Unlike other desktop builds of FreeBSD, MidnightBSD was originally developed […]
The default inclusion of the Idle Detection API in Chrome 94 has led to a wave of criticism, citing objections from Firefox and WebKit/Safari developers. The Idle Detection API allows websites to determine when a user is inactive, i.e., not interacting with the keyboard/mouse or working on another monitor. The API also provides information on whether a screensaver is running on the system. Notification […]
The release of the CRIU 3.16 (Checkpoint and Restore In Userspace) toolkit has been announced, designed for saving and restoring processes in user space. The toolkit allows the state of a single process or a group of processes to be saved and then resumed from that saved position, even after a system reboot or on another server without breaking already established network connections. The project's code is distributed under the license […]
The Waydroid project has developed a toolkit that allows for the creation of an isolated environment in a standard Linux distribution for booting a complete system image of the Android platform and running Android applications using it. The code of the proposed toolkit is written in Python and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Ready-made packages are created for Ubuntu 20.04/21.04, Debian 11, Droidian, and Ubports. The environment is set up using standard technologies […]
After six months of development, the GNOME 41 desktop environment has been released. To quickly assess the capabilities of GNOME 41, specialized Live builds based on openSUSE and an installer image prepared as part of the GNOME OS initiative have been offered. GNOME 41 is also already included in the experimental build of Fedora 35. The new release includes: enhanced power consumption settings. It provides the opportunity for a quick change of mode […]
Google has released version 94 of the Chrome web browser. At the same time, a stable release of the free project Chromium, which underlies Chrome, is available. The Chrome browser is distinguished by the use of Google logos, a notification system in case of crashes, modules for playing protected video content (DRM), an automatic update system, and transmission of RLZ parameters during searches. The next release of Chrome, version 95, is scheduled for October 19. Starting from […]
The UBports project, which has taken over the development of the mobile platform Ubuntu Touch after Canonical stepped away from it, has released the OTA-19 (over-the-air) firmware update. The project is also developing an experimental port of the Unity 8 desktop, which has been renamed to Lomiri. The Ubuntu Touch OTA-19 update has been created for smartphones including BQ E4.5/E5/M10/U Plus, Cosmo Communicator, F(x)tec Pro1, Fairphone 2/3, Google […]
The non-profit human rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has announced the decision to classify the browser extension HTTPS Everywhere as deprecated. The HTTPS Everywhere extension was available for all popular browsers and allowed users to utilize HTTPS on all sites where possible, addressing the issue of sites that provide unencrypted access by default but support HTTPS, as well as resources using links […]
Collabora has announced the certification of the Panfrost graphics driver by Khronos, which successfully passed all tests of the Khronos Conformance Test Suite (CTS) and is recognized as fully compatible with the OpenGL ES 3.1 specification. The driver is certified using the Mali-G52 GPU, but certification for other chips is planned for the future. In particular, non-certified support for OpenGL ES 3.1 has already been implemented for chips […]
The developers of the OpenVPN VPN package have introduced the ovpn-dco kernel module, which significantly boosts VPN performance. Although the module is still in development, focusing only on the linux-next branch and has an experimental status, it has already reached a level of stability that allows it to be used for enabling the OpenVPN Cloud service. Compared to the configuration based on the interface […]